Replatforming your eCommerce store: which platform should you choose?

Article topics

1. WooCommerce
2. Magento
3. Shopify
4. Shopify Plus
5. Adobe Commerce

When was the last time you audited your eCommerce store to make sure it was fit for purpose?

If your website is running slowly, doesn’t have the functionality you need, or is leading to negative reviews online, it might be time for a rethink.

‘Replatforming’ is when you move from one eCommerce platform to another, optimising the website to make sure it performs as you need it to in the future.

Find out more about the differences between rehosting, replatforming, and refactoring.

As an example, let’s say customers can only place a limited number of orders on your site a day. If your store is becoming more popular and order numbers are increasing, it may mean some unlucky people aren’t able to buy from your store.

Moving to an eCommerce platform that allows more orders a day means you get more revenue, and your customers get what they want. It’s a win-win!

So you know you need to replatform your online business. The next big question… which eCommerce platform do you choose? It’s crucial to pick the platform that aligns with your requirements and offers the features you need now, as well as in the future.

After all, you don’t want to move your site to another platform, only to do it all again two or three years later!

In this comprehensive guide, we’re looking at five different eCommerce platforms your company can move to. We’ll consider the pros and cons of each, as well as what type of business each platform benefits the most.

Don’t forget to scroll down to the bottom of this article to get your free cheat sheet, where you can easily compare and contrast the five different platforms!

WooCommerce

Best for: Small businesses looking for a fully customisable solution
Stores powered by WooCommerce worldwide: 3.86m

Small but mighty, WooCommerce is an open-source eCommerce platform that is used alongside WordPress.

It’s the platform of choice for small eCommerce stores, as well as businesses that want to test the waters and trial selling items on their websites.

Check out these beautiful websites that use WooCommerce.

The advantages of WooCommerce

• It’s compatible with WordPress. WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, which makes it easy to integrate into your existing website
• It’s free. WooCommerce is a free, open-source plugin, making it a great choice if you have a limited budget or are just starting out
• It’s great for SEO. While all the platforms in this article offer SEO capabilities, we’ve found that WooCommerce is the best. So if you’re looking to rank high in the search engines, WooCommerce is a fantastic eCommerce platform to use

The disadvantages of WooCommerce

• It offers limited SKUs and orders. With WooCommerce, you’re limited to 10k SKUs and 500 orders a day. While this may be more than enough for your business, if you have a wide product range, it may put you at a disadvantage
• There’s no customer support. If you have issues with WooCommerce, there isn’t a customer service team you can reach out to. The good news is that there are lots of forums and groups online you can ask for information
• There are hidden costs. WooCommerce is free to download and use, but you may have to pay for additional features and functionality. For example, if you want to use a payment gateway other than PayPal or Stripe

Magento

Best for: Medium-sized companies with many products to sell
Stores powered by Magento worldwide: 170k

Magento is the Swiss army knife of eCommerce platforms – hardwearing with a lot of functionality.

While it’s not a platform you can get up and running straight away, it is one of the most popular eCommerce platforms and, best of all… it’s free!

The advantages of Magento

• It’s powerful. You get many features, including 100k SKUs, multi-store functionality, and multiple inventory locations. Not bad for a free platform!
• It has a lot in common with Adobe Commerce. Magento and Adobe Commerce are comparable by means of design. This means if you opt to move from Magento to Adobe Commerce (or the other way round), you can take advantage of remarkably similar functionality
• It’s very mobile-friendly. We all know the benefits a mobile-friendly website can bring. As Magento uses HTML 5, it results in a highly optimised mobile-first eCommerce store

The disadvantages of Magento

• You don’t get customer support. Like WooCommerce, you can’t reach out to the Magento developers if you have any questions. However, there is a large Magento community online if you need help with anything
• It’s one of the challenging platforms to learn. While Magento has got loads of functionality, it can be hard to get your head around how it works if you’re not a developer
• It can lead to a slow site. Magento takes up a lot of space. As you’re hosting the platform, you must ensure your hosting server can manage it. Otherwise, you may end up with a slow and unresponsible website

Shopify

Best for: SMEs that want an all-in-one package
Stores powered by Shopify worldwide: 4.4m

If you asked most people to name an eCommerce platform, they’d probably say Shopify – and with good reason!

So far, all the platforms we’ve looked at are what are known as ‘open source’. Shopify is a software as a service (SaaS) platform, meaning you pay a monthly fee to use it. This means you can get up and running quickly, and turn your site off when you no longer need it.

See some stunning fashion websites that take advantage of Shopify.

The advantages of Shopify

• Everything is contained in one package. Shopify is a complete platform, meaning you get hosting, marketing tools, and a payment platform all in one place. This means less time spent running your store and more time making a profit!
• Everything updates automatically. Shopify manages security upgrades for you, so you know your site is secure at all times
• Tiered pricing is available. There are different levels of pricing available, meaning you can use Shopify whether you’re a small micro business or a medium-sized business with a significant product offering

The disadvantages of Shopify

• It’s not very compatible with other platforms. Shopify uses its own unique coding, which means if you decide to move to another platform in the future, you may have to rebuild your site from scratch
• There’s a lack of customisation. There’s not much scope for putting your own stamp on certain aspects of your store, for example, the checkout. While some store owners may appreciate the familiarity between Shopify stores, others looking for something a little different may be disappointed. You can however create additional functionality by downloading apps
• You can only have one inventory location. Unlike platforms like Magento, Shopify Plus, and Adobe Commerce, you can only attach one inventory location (e.g. a warehouse or store) to your account

Shopify vs Magento: which eCommerce platform is right for you?

Shopify Plus

Best for: Large businesses that still want a reliable, all-in-one platform
Stores powered by Shopify Plus worldwide: 14k

What do you do if you love Shopify, but you’ve scaled to the point that it’s no longer suitable for your needs? In this scenario, you might want to consider moving to Shopify Plus.

Shopify Plus offers the same all-in-one hosting solution for large and enterprise-level businesses. You get everything in the Shopify Plan, as well as a dedicated account manager, improved customer support, and additional features.

The advantages of Shopify Plus

• It’s very user-friendly. Just like its little sister, Shopify Plus is easy to use, even if you have a lot of products to sell
• It offers exemplary customer service. Shopify is well-known for its excellent customer service, and Shopify Plus takes this to the next level with your own account manager
• There is multi-store functionality. Unlike Shopify, Shopify Plus lets you launch several webstores at a time. For example, you can have different stores for different international markets

The disadvantages of Shopify Plus

• It’s expensive. Shopify Plus costs upwards of £2k a month compared to Shopify’s £29.99. This means you need to make sure you will take advantage of all the benefits it offers for the cost
• It’s not very customisable. Like Shopify, there are limited options when it comes to altering the look and feel of your store
• The store is not your own. Your eCommerce store is on the Shopify platform rather than your own system. This means that if something happens to Shopify, you might lose your website and your source of income

Adobe Commerce (formerly known as Magento Enterprise)

Best for: Enterprise level stores that want something they can customise to their exact requirements
Stores powered by Adobe Commerce worldwide: 9k

Like Shopify Plus is the super-charged version of Shopify, Adobe Commerce is the fully boosted version of Magento! The difference is that unlike Shopify and Shopify Plus, Adobe Commerce is self-hosted.

While Magento is an open-sourced eCommerce platform, Adobe Commerce is a premium, paid-for version designed for large businesses to offer a high-quality shopping experience to customers.

The advantages of Adobe Commerce

• Lots of unique functionality that other eCommerce platforms don’t have. If you’re looking for a platform that will give you the edge over your competitors, Adobe Commerce has a wealth of innovative features. For example, you get AI-assisted search, unlimited personalisation and product recommendations as standard. You can even implement headless architecture
• Importing and exporting data is easy. In our experience, Adobe Commerce is one of the simplest platforms to migrate your existing data to, meaning you can be up and running sooner than you might think!
• It’s extremely powerful. Adobe Commerce is an absolute powerhouse of an eCommerce platform. It processes payments and orders rapidly, meaning you can sit back and not worry about your website letting you down

The disadvantages of Adobe Commerce

• It’s not easy to use. While Adobe Commerce is one of the best platforms for customisation, the learning curve is steep. The good news is that if you have experience with Magento, it makes things much easier!
• There’s no built-in email marketing. While you get email marketing tools with Shopify and Shopify Plus, this feature is not part of Adobe Commerce
• It’s expensive. While you do get what you pay for, Adobe Commerce is the costliest platform on this list, at £2.7k a month